DAPNET Forums Archive › Forums › Draft Animal Power › Oxen › Cultivating with oxen
- This topic has 1 reply, 2 voices, and was last updated 13 years, 6 months ago by
bivol.
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- April 29, 2011 at 7:27 pm #42676
B Grant
ParticipantI recently purchased the one-horse cultivator from I&J manufacturing. I’m planning on doing between-row cultivation on my market garden with a single ox this summer. Our garden is intensively planted with raised beds, so I try to keep the footpaths as narrow as possible. I’ve tentatively planned for 18″ paths between beds. I know it is a bit on the narrow side for an ox, but then again it isn’t any narrower than walking a furrow. Any thoughts? It’s not too late to alter my plan, but like I said I’m keen to get as many beds per field as possible.
Thanks.
April 29, 2011 at 8:41 pm #67133bivol
Participantwell, i can think of four things…
getting him used to walk there before work
maybe if you take the ox out to the field, hitch him up and tire him out a bit, and then send him down between the rows (without stopping!!) as training to walk in between the beds without stopping before you make him pull anything…by wearing him out before he goes down the beds he’ll be less motivated to do something we dont want (like kick the beds down) and he’ll be concentrated on walking down instead.
make him accustomed to walking the entire way without stopping – so you wont have to prod him so much later on.
adjust your cultivator for depth beforehand
adjusting can mean stopping and going a number of times in furrow, which teaches the ox it’s ok to stop in furrows -> prodding => frustration.
so, if you set your cultivator somewhere else (on the field) while you’re giving him a workout, and it is already set by the time you hit the furrows, you wont have to stop the ox at all once it moves.have a muzzle on him
ithe only other thing i can think of are muzzles, so the ox doesn’t snatch any goodies he aint supposed to… - AuthorPosts
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